Business Recorder Editorial Feb 11, 2019

SC’s TLP verdict

The Supreme Court (SC) has delivered a hard-hitting, critical detailed judgement regarding the Tehreek-i-Labaik Pakistan (TLP) 20-day dharna (sit-in) at Faizabad Chowk in November 2017 that disrupted life in Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Addressing the government, the judgement says violent protestors who infringe other citizens’ rights, including freedom of movement and right to property, must be proceeded against and held accountable. To the intelligence agencies, the court offers the following advice: do not ignore promoters of violence, hate, extremism. Self-appointed fatwa (religious edict) peddlers who declare people liable to be killed on spurious grounds amongst other negative consequences should be prosecuted, says the SC. For the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) the court says it should act against political parties violating the election laws and failing to divulge the source of their funding. Media suppression through overt/covert censorship, self-censorship ‘advice’, ‘directions’ as to who can be hired/fired, cable operators stopping or interrupting broadcasts, preventing distribution of newspapers have all been held patently illegal and unconstitutional. While advising that laws should be enacted to clearly spell out the respective mandates of the intelligence agencies, the SC requires the heads of the armed forces to penalise any personnel under their command for indulging in political activities. The verdict particularly refers to the cash handouts to the TLP Faizabad protestors by uniformed men in the clear light of day as contributing to the perception of the intelligence agencies being involved in such activities. Justice Qazi Faez Isa, who authored the judgement, traced the ISI’s history and argued that when institutions stay within their designated constitutional boundaries and there exist effective checks and balances, citizens remain safe and the state prospers. The trouble starts with self-proclaimed saviours, the SC points out. The police and law enforcement agencies are required to develop standard operating procedures and plans to handle rallies, protests and sit-ins with sufficient flexibility to deal with different situations. In maintenance of law and order, the SC says, every effort must be made to avoid injury and deaths. The SC has ordered the distribution of copies of the verdict to government, concerned ministries, the armed forces, intelligence agencies, etc, i.e. all those to whom the judgement speaks.

There can be no denying the fact that the SC verdict delves into phenomena and their consequences that have over the decades eroded the rule of law and rendered constitutional provisions infructuous. It also names the institutions responsible, points out their derelictions of duty and expanding their remit beyond what the law and Constitution allows, and envisages accountability for those transgressions. As to the right of peaceful protest permitted by the Constitution, the SC defines the limit of such protest at the line where others’ fundamental rights are violated. In a telling reference, the verdict cites the example of the May 12, 2007 massacre of citizens wanting to greet deposed Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry at Karachi airport and the failure of holding to account those responsible, which set a terrible example and emboldened others to think that violence could help them achieve their goals. While the verdict ranges over and virtually constitutes a stinging rebuke to the perpetrators of extremism, violence, hatred and intimidation, it does not shrink from calling into question state institutions’ transgressions above and beyond the law as well as dereliction of duty in ensuring law and order and peace in the country.

While the SC verdict delivers a body blow to many things that are wrong in our state and society as reflected in the TLP Faizabad event, one could be forgiven for some degree of cynicism regarding the impact on, and subsequent response of, the institutions taken to task in the judgement. Given the present landscape, can the SC follow up on its verdict to ensure its strictures are paid attention to and orders implemented? An intriguing thought that flies in the face of our track record.

Business Recorder Editorial Feb 8, 2019

Moscow talks

In an extraordinary gathering of Afghan politicians in Moscow, including some of President Ashraf Ghani’s political rivals, talks took place on February 5-6, 2019 with the Taliban on the way forward in the war torn country. The Taliban came to the table armed with a charm offensive, including a call for a new, inclusive Islamic Constitution, no Taliban monopoly on power, stamping out poppy cultivation, preventing civilian casualties and relaxation of some of the stringent restrictions on women during their 1996-2001 stint in power. These negotiating positions of the Taliban speak to the most serious reservations in the minds of the Afghan people regarding the return, partially or wholly, of the Taliban to power. However, sweet sounding as these positions are relatively, there are still lingering doubts about what the Taliban might wreak once back in a position to impose their narrow, intolerant agenda on the country. The Moscow moot was organised by the Afghan diaspora, but it is obvious it could not have been held in Moscow without the concurrence of the Russian authorities. While Ghani’s rivals, including former president Hamid Karzai, supped, prayed and chatted with their Taliban counterparts and even some Afghan women representatives got to have their say, the elephant in the room was the missing Afghan government. This absence followed the script of the recent US-Taliban talks in Doha where the Ghani government was again conspicuous by its absence. Although Washington continues to pay lip service to the Afghan government’s indispensable role in any settlement, in practice the refusal of the Taliban to talk to the Afghan government they deride as a US puppet seems for the moment at least to have been tacitly conceded by the US negotiating side. This in turn has angered an increasingly beleaguered looking President Ashraf Ghani, who has pooh poohed the Moscow moot as irrelevant. Nevertheless the moot saw the Afghan rivals of Ghani demand an interim government to facilitate the negotiated peace process. This possibility erodes Ghani’s legitimacy and poses serious questions about the forthcoming presidential elections scheduled for July 2019, which may, if the demand gathers momentum, sideline Ashraf Ghani completely.

While these inter-Afghan political intricacies play out and the looming dark shadows over President Ashraf Ghani’s future gather, there are other, even more pressing concerns that still roil most informed minds. Although the main concern of Washington that Afghan territory never again be allowed to be used to attack the US or any of its allies has been agreed to by the Taliban, serious concerns about the timeframe, conditions attending, and mechanisms to oversee and implement whatever agreements finally emerge from the talks process have not been satisfactorily answered. With hindsight, the received wisdom today is that the US should never have blundered into an unwinnable war despite its overwhelming military strength. The old guerrilla warfare maxim seems to have been overlooked by Washington: the guerrillas win if they do not lose; the other side loses if it does not win. This maxim underlines the protracted, asymmetrical nature of guerrilla war, which cannot defeat the vastly superior enemy, the US in this case, but can over time sap its will to continue a seemingly endless conflict. Observers of the Afghan scene fear a fiercer civil war once the US and NATO forces leave, with its concomitant possibilities of a fresh refugee outflow and the devastating results of shrinking aid for Afghanistan. In case anyone thinks these concerns are exaggerated, it is sufficient to point to Taliban attacks in Kunduz and Baghlan provinces while the Moscow parleys were on to underline the Taliban strategy of talking while fighting and inflicting what have been termed unsustainable casualties daily on government forces. A sign of the shifting sands can be found in Iran, Russia, China and the countries of the region reassessing their positions vis-à-vis the Taliban, poised as they may be on the brink of returning to power in one form or another. While hesitant to sound the death knell prematurely, the trends show a definite tilt towards the unravelling of the US project in Afghanistan, with some predictable and perhaps some unforeseen consequences still to come.

Business Recorder Editorial Feb 6, 2019

Two new southern Punjab provinces proposal

While the issue of creating a new province in southern Punjab simmers on the backburner, the opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has moved a bill on January 29, 2019, advocating the creation of not one but two new provinces in southern Punjab. These new provinces, according to the PML-N bill, will comprise Bahawalpur (the present administrative division) and South Punjab (comprising Dera Ghazi Khan and Multan divisions). In principle all three major political parties, the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI), Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and PML-N are committed to the creation of a new province (or now two in the PML-N’s case) in southern Punjab. The argument for this innovation is that the size of the present Punjab province means a terribly lop-sided federation in which the brute majority of the largest and most developed province allows it to ride roughshod over the wishes of the smaller provinces. Within the existing boundaries of Punjab the Seraiki speaking area of southern Punjab has long-standing complaints of neglect, partly at least because control from Lahore works against the region’s development needs. The PTI is committed in its election manifesto to the creation of a southern Punjab province but since coming to power six months ago has shown precious little interest in pursuing the idea. This may be due to the lingering concern that any division of Punjab may threaten its precarious majority in the province. It may also be that the difficulties attendant on the proposal are nothing to be sneezed at. First and foremost, the idea cannot move forward without a consensus on the issue amongst all stakeholders and the major political parties. The PML-N bill can be interpreted as a sincere proposal in the interests of the region, as former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has argued, or as its detractors hold, a diversionary political tactic to throw a spanner in the works of any attempt to grapple with the complexities of the issue and in the process embarrass the PTI government for its alleged failure to fulfil its election pledge. It should not however be forgotten that the PTI government in the Centre and in Punjab rests on the support of the Seraiki belt politicos who switched sides (as is their wont) to the PTI just before the 2018 elections. The PTI therefore arguably faces pressure from within its ranks too in the shape of its Seraiki belt members to see the idea through until it reaches fruition.

Of the proposals on the table, two stand out. One is that the new province be carved out of existing Punjab on an ethnic/linguistic basis (mainly Seraiki speaking areas) and the other a division on an administrative basis. The first option runs the risk of opening a Pandora’s box of demands for new provinces on an ethnic/linguistic basis by for example the Hazaras in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the Pashtuns in Balochistan, and Urdu speakers in Sindh. Once the principle of a new ethnic/linguistic province is conceded in Punjab, it will be difficult to resist similar demands from such groups elsewhere. Finding anything resembling a consensus on these demands may well prove beyond the wisdom of our political class. The option of an administrative division of Punjab does not suffer from such drawbacks but may leave disgruntled groups unhappy at being lumped with others they wish to demarcate themselves from. However, on balance this appears the less difficult of the options to come to an agreement on. While the so far slow, meandering journey to sorting out Punjab’s division proceeds, there is nothing to stop the PTI government from devolving power to southern Punjab to address local grievances and provide governance that reverses the ‘arms length’ control from Lahore. The PTI government has voiced measures to devolve administrative and law enforcement arrangements to southern Punjab within a year. That may not be a bad beginning and the experience could also help inform opinion about the best way forward from there.

Business Recorder Column Feb 5, 2019

Venezuela’s crisis

Rashed Rahman

The world is watching with bated breath the drama playing out in Venezuela. Can Nicolas Maduro’s government/presidency survive the onslaught of the US-led campaign for regime change? What are the factors that have led the once promising Chavista revolution to this impasse? What, if any, have been the strategic and tactical mistakes along the way that have left the Maduro regime so under siege?

It should be stated at the very outset that US arrogance vis-à-vis regimes that do not toe its line worldwide is only surpassed by its self-anointed role of master of Latin America (insultingly referred to as the US’s ‘backyard’). There is a long and sorry history of US intervention in Latin America. In the past, dictators planted with US support throughout Latin America were eventually only overthrown when the people’s resistance forced Washington to abandon its satraps as unsustainable any longer. Where left wing or (in recent years) left of centre governments did manage to come to power through the ballot box (the exception is Cuba, where a revolution succeeded in capturing power), a string of external pressures orchestrated by Washington combined with internal unrest and disaffection with the support of local elites served to destabilise and eventually defeat such dispensations. What followed after ‘democratic’ elections were more often than not right wing governments wedded to the interests of the landowning and capitalist elite, tied in myriads of strings of vested interest with ‘Big Brother’ to the north.

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, especially the latter decade, Latin American military dictatorships brought to power through coups with the support of Washington were the norm. The 1958 triumph of Fidel Castro’s revolution in Cuba inspired a whole palette of guerrilla movements throughout Latin America, including in some cases urban guerrilla struggle. None of these movements succeeded. The longest running one in Colombia has of late succumbed to fatigue and abandoned the armed struggle road in exchange for amnesty and being allowed to enter the political mainstream.

In Venezuela’s case, the 1990s saw Hugo Chavez being elected President. Despite the disquiet and seething resentment of the elite, he used Venezuela’s oil revenues (the country has the largest confirmed oil reserves in the world) to redistribute wealth, carry out social welfare measures and raise millions out of stark poverty. This was enough to earn him the ire of the US, which imposed sanctions on Venezuela. Chavez retaliated by nationalising US oil interests in Venezuela, thereby setting the stage for repeated coup attempts and assassination plots against his life. All these efforts were beaten back with the wholesale and unstinting support of the masses who owned the Chavista revolution as their own. Maduro too has been the victim of repeated assassination attempts, mercifully unsuccessful.

When Chavez died of cancer, Maduro was elected President in his place. His ascent to power coincided with the precipitate fall in international oil prices (slashed to one-third), increased sanctions by Washington, and the incremental unleashing of US-trained young agitators, of whom the opposition’s presidential pretender Juan Guaido is a prime example. These young agitators are part of a plan floated by Washington to bring about regime change in Eastern Europe (the so-called ‘colour’ revolutions), the Arab world (the misnamed and short lived Arab Spring), and any other country in the world that resists the US’s imperial hegemony.

In Venezuela’s case, the oil is what is making Washington, sundry European capitals in tow, and some right wing governments in Latin America drool. But it must be admitted that both Chavez and Maduro missed the bus of putting Venezuela on the road to sustainable economic growth by failing to use the window provided by oil revenues (when they were high) to diversify the economy away from dependence on the export of just one commodity. The result is that the crash in oil prices and the sanctions earlier imposed by Washington and now ratcheted up by US President Donald Trump have produced hyperinflation, the collapse of normal day to day economic functions and the desperate fleeing of people unable to manage in the country’s straitened circumstances into neighbouring countries. All this has been pounced upon by Washington and its local satraps to challenge the Maduro regime as illegitimate and Juan Guaido to declare himself president. Ironically, the never failing upholders of democracy and human rights amongst the European countries have joined in a chorus Washington’s campaign to get rid of Maduro.

What is the likely outcome of all these manouevres? So far the Venezuelan military is standing by the Maduro regime despite the defection of an Air Force General who called on his colleagues to join him. Guaido tried to dent this support by offering amnesty to soldiers not involved in human rights abuses. So far at least, this gambit has failed to crack the solid front of the military behind Maduro. Were this front to develop cracks, it is uncertain how long Maduro and his supporters could hold out against the opposition agitators in the streets, possible inter-military fighting, and threatened invasion by the US from neigbouring countries.

If the military remains united, disciplined and consistent in its support for Maduro, this may give pause to US plans for a military intervention or, horrifyingly, may persuade Washington to go for a bigger military intervention (‘shock and awe’). In either case, were Maduro to be overthrown by the US and its local tools, there is no ruling out the descent of Venezuela into a civil war with devastating consequences for its people and the region.

The imperialist hegemon the US, with Europe and the Latin American right in tow, is carrying on its traditional long standing policy of intervention, military and hybrid, in Venezuela as the last bastion of the elected Left in the continent. It will be interesting to watch how the people of Venezuela challenge this blatant interference and intervention in their sovereign internal affairs. Watch this space.

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

Business Recorder Editorial Feb 3, 2019

The end of the beginning?

Aasia Bibi has finally been declared unreservedly innocent by the Supreme Court (SC) in dismissing the review petition against her acquittal by the apex court on October 31, 2018. The SC bench headed by newly appointed Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Asif Saeed Khosa summarily dismissed the review petition on the grounds that counsel for the petitioner had signally failed to point out any flaw in the acquittal judgement. The SC bench pointed out the stark discrepancies and contradictions in the witness testimonies that failed to corroborate each other. The CJP deplored that while the case was decided on merit, threats were hurled at the judges that they should be killed. He also reminded the petitioner’s counsel how all of Pakistan had been disrupted and everything in their way torched by the protestors of the Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan (TLP). Having finally cleared the last hurdle in the way of her freedom, the Foreign Office and Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry chimed in with the tidings that Aasia Bibi was now free to go wherever she wants. It may be recalled that after the October 31, 2018 acquittal by the SC, Aasia Bibi had been released from jail but kept in preventive custody at a secret location to avoid any attempt to harm her by the fanatics of the TLP. Some western countries, chief among them Canada, have offered her and her family asylum since it is widely perceived that the danger to their lives from TLP fanatics is not yet over. One more turn for the better is the inability of the TLP this time round to mount more than small, sporadic protests against the dismissal of the review petition, owed in considerable measure to the fact that the TLP leadership and active cadre languish behind bars. These protests were easily dispersed by the police through arrests and some preventive detentions.

Now that Aasia Bibi and her family’s ordeal appears to be over, troubling questions and considerations linger. First and foremost, as referred to by the CJP, what if any action has been taken or is likely against those who bore false witness in the case? Such perjury, the CJP pointed out, attracted action under Section 194 of the Code of Criminal Procedure extending to life imprisonment. Second, did the trial and Lahore High Court (LHC) that condemned her to death and upheld her conviction and death sentence respectively exercise their judicial minds objectively and fairly when confronted with the glaring inconsistencies and outright lies strewn across the face of the witnesses’ testimonies? Did they critically examine the locus standi of the original complainant (and review petitioner before the SC), Qari Mohammad Salam, and the fact that he managed to get the FIR against Aasia Bibi registered almost a week after the alleged blasphemous incident? Was there any attempt at a proper investigation by the police before the FIR was registered (this has seldom if ever happened in blasphemy accusation cases)? The answers to these questions indubitably point towards the tragic consequences following such blasphemy accusations, often false or motivated by mundane earthly rather than religious motives. Blasphemy accused have been lynched by fanatical mobs. If they escape such a fate, the climate of fear generated by hate-mongering vigilantes places a dark cloud of threat to life and limb over their heads even if the courts find them innocent. The latter is an all too infrequent occurrence, and it has been argued that the killing of Justice Arif Bhatti of the LHC for acquitting a blasphemy accused three years after he retired has instilled fear of the consequences amongst our honourable members of the bench, not to mention unprotected prosecutors and witnesses. Court proceedings in blasphemy cases make a mockery of due process since the original charge cannot even be quoted or repeated since that would be considered blasphemy too. No religion, let alone Islam, advocates such irrationality from which tragic consequences more often than not flow. For too long, religious fanatics have been able to browbeat and frighten citizens and the state by a blanket monopoly on religious edicts that may or may not conform to the just principles of Islam but certainly wreak havoc in their wake.

Aasia Bibi’s ordeal speaks to similar ordeals undergone by all blasphemy accused. So far there is no legal or moral sanction imposed on false and frivolous accusers. We hope Aasia Bibi and her family can put their nightmare behind them and be able to knit their destroyed lives together again. Of course nothing can compensate her or them for the pain, fear and persecution, real and threatened, they have undergone. At this point, spare a thought for all others subjected to this dark practice. The late Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer and Minorities Minister Shahbaz Bhatti fell to fanatical assassins for the ‘sin’ of standing up for the rights of Aasia Bibi. How many more Aasia Bibis, Salmaan Taseers and Shahbaz Bhattis need to be sacrificed before Pakistan turns its back on the benighted fallout of the blasphemy laws and re-emerges into the light of a modern, civilised, law-ruled and -abiding society?